Product Description

User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
bosevictim
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: September 22, 2006

Bottom Line:

I used to own this speakers, i had the 201 and 301 also. I thought i got the high-end speakers because i got BOSE until i saw a Boston acoustics A40 in a thrift store selling for $10, i bought it out of curiosity. When i hooked it up i was amazed to hear details that i never heard from my BOSE speakers, that's when i started to auditon speakers before buying them or at least do a research.

I'm surprised to see some reviewers here that claim they own klipsch, paradigm, B&W, infinity, polk, jbl, Boston acoustics and yet they give good rating to BOSE speakers. I don't know how they can even compare BOSE to the speakers I've mentioned above, either they are tone deaf or they are lying about having owned the speakers above, even the $30 RCA speakers produces more details than BOSE!

To all that are thinking that Bose are the best, or even think that they make a good system or speaker. Please believe me when I say the lifestyle system is garbage. The speakers are very inadequate. I was suckered by name brand and hip. If I did my research I would of discovered that bose makes junk and doesn't back up there product. I have spent 100s trying to get this system to sound good. I have hired experts to see if I was doing somthing wrong. I have it set up correct since day 1. Its just that Bose makes a bad product. Bose is a low end quality product. That has a purpose in the low end market and should sell for $100 for the entire system. If anyone disagrees e-mail me and I will sell my system for a fraction of what I paid for it. I would actually give them 0 stars. But 1 was as low as they will go

Wow! Some people really like to slam Bose. I bought three Bose 100s from ebay for about 40 bucks a piece. There's no beating these little speakers for the price, friends. I use mine for surround and center and they work fine. I'll have to spend quite a bit more when I upgrade.

The 100s don't produce much bass or upper treble, but they get the mids right. They blend right in with other speakers(I'm using Boston towers for the mains).

Don't hesitate to purchase these because some self-labled Bose-bashers curse them. These are smooth sounding, limited-use speakers. Just because Bose brags about its mediocre table radios doesn't meen the company makes no quality products. I consider the 100s to be a triumph in minimalist audio, both in pricing and physical dimension.

It always amuses me the people who write negative reviews for the Bose products just because they hate Bose. Pathetic, really, and I'd bet most of them don't even own the products they slam.

I've been designing and building loudspeaker systems aka "DIY" for the last 25 years. I use CAD and other equipment to help design and tune the enclosures, and I've developed dozens of systems and subwoofers for home theater and auto over the years.

Bose speakers are fine. No they aren't the best you can buy, but they also are not the worst thing out there equivalent to "clock radio" quality, either. I purchased the 100's in white and a matching V100 (same speaker but a bronze color) for surrounds and center. These speakers are perfect for small/medium room Dolby Digital/DTS duty where you are using the receivers bass management to cross them over at a reasonable frequency. No, you won't get huge bass out of these, but the mids and highs are really quite decent and smooth for a full range driver. Used with a powered sub for bass and all other speakers set to "small" with a xover of 100Hz or so, you couldn't ask for more convenient, clearer, better sound for your mid-fi home theater application. The center is especially noteworthy, as dialogue and effects are clear and articulate, even at high volumes. There is something to be said about the smoothness of a high performance, full-range driver without the complications of (often badly designed) crossover networks to muddle the sound. They might even be slightly bright in the mid-upper treble range, but I somewhat like that since I run all tone controls flat anyways.

I've also found these speakers integrate just fine with most left/right combinations, including top name brands as well as my own DIY creations. No, i probably wouldn't recommend these for primary left/right duty if you like music, but for home theater they work terrific for center/surrounds. The included mounting brackets that came with my white 100's were also very convenient for wall mounting near the ceiling, angling the speakers down toward the listening/viewing area. Bose haters, get a life. ;)

I am using these for my rear surrounds. The problem is, they were a total impulse buy. I didn't know a thing about home theater setups at the time and the sales associate was able to figure that out in a fraction of a second. I could tell that he really did not want me to buy them because they had so many other brands in stock that would sound soooo much better. The ONLY reason I chose them over all of the other speakers in the store is because they were white and under $150 for the pair. Wow, was that an ignorant decision on my part.

These are in no way 'quality' speakers. I learned the Bose lesson the hard way folks, but at least I didn't have to spend a fortune in the process. These speakers should in no way be used for anything other than rear surrounds. Bottom Line - If you don't care one bit about sound quality and you are able to pick these up for less than $50, then go ahead and buy them.